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Summary of the impact

Alison Rowlands' research on witch-trials in Rothenburg ob der Tauber and
its rural hinterland
provides the first ever scholarly study of witch-trials in this territory.
The findings of this research
have challenged the stereotype of the witch as an old woman and have shown
the motivations of
witch-hunters to have been much more complicated than previously thought.
This research has
informed Rowlands' public engagement programme `What is a `Witch'?', which
has corrected
public misconceptions of the history of witchcraft, brought benefits to
cultural institutions with which
she has collaborated, and contributed to local and national Key Stage 2,
3, and A Level school
teaching.

Underpinning research

Public perceptions of witchcraft beliefs and witch-hunts are often shaped
by misconceptions about
these phenomena that distort the reality of their history. Central to
these popular misconceptions
are the ideas: that all parts of early modern Europe experienced sustained
and large-scale witch-hunts;
that most of those prosecuted for witchcraft were old, poor women; and
that witch-hunters
were straightforwardly wicked and villainous.

Research undertaken by Dr Alison Rowlands (Lecturer at Essex from 2000,
Senior Lecturer from
2002) has deconstructed myths of the history of witchcraft and reassessed
these common
stereotypes. Her monograph Witchcraft Narratives in Germany:
Rothenburg, 1561-1652 (2003)
explored the witch-trials that took place in Rothenburg ob der Tauber (a
German imperial city) and
its rural hinterland. Early modern Germany is often portrayed as `the
heartland of the witch-craze';
the assumption is that witch-hunts there were invariably large-scale and
horrific in terms of the
numbers executed and the torture used. Rothenburg, however, experienced
very low levels of
legal prosecution of witchcraft. Rowlands' book is the first ever
scholarly study of witch-trials in this
area, and made a key contribution to the historiography by explaining the
factors which worked to
restrain enthusiasm for witch-hunts at both the popular and elite level in
this part of Germany.

The book also contains an analysis of the gendering of witch-persecution,
and detailed case-studies
of trials involving men and children tried for witchcraft. In articles
published in 2001 and
2002 Rowlands critically analysed the stereotype of the witch as an old,
poor woman, suggesting
instead that a much wider range of people were imagined as witches in
early modern Europe. In
these articles she argued that other literature trivialised the
experiences of accused individuals who
were neither old nor female by over-emphasising the vulnerability of old
women to accusations of
witchcraft.

This work was developed in an edited collection of essays (2009), which
made male witches and
the issue of masculinity and witchcraft its central focus. Rowlands' own
contribution to the
collection draws on her work on masculinity in the history of witchcraft,
as well as her research into
elite male opinion about witchcraft in seventeenth-century East Anglia
(2011). In her introduction to
the collection Rowlands criticised existing scholarly explanations of the
gendering of witch-persecution
and suggested that those accused of witchcraft should be understood as
`bad
neighbours' — those who transgressed the norms of Christian communal
living — a category that
was less gendered in some contexts than in others. She has also argued for
more systematic
analysis of the extent to which different codes of masculinity motivated
and shaped the actions of
the men who acted as witch-hunters in the early modern period. This
research has built on her
earlier case studies based in Rothenburg by studying the history of
witch-hunts in East Anglia.

References to the research

Rowlands, A. (2002a) Stereotypes and statistics: Old women and
accusations of witchcraft in early
modern Europe, in S. Ottaway et al. (ed.) Power and Poverty: Old Age
in the Pre-Industrial
Past, Conneticut: Greenwood, 167-186. ISBN: 9780313311284

Rowlands, A. (2009) Not `the usual suspects'? Male witches, witchcraft,
and masculinities in the
early modern world, in A. Rowlands (ed.) Witchcraft and Masculinities
in Early Modern Europe,
Palgrave Macmillan, 1-30. ISBN: 978-0230553293

Details of the impact

Over the last five years Rowlands has engaged members of the public in
the UK and in Germany
to challenge received wisdom about the history of witchcraft. Over this
time her public engagement
activities have developed into a strategic dissemination programme
entitled `What is a Witch?'.

`What is a Witch?' is both a public engagement and schools outreach
programme which adapts
Rowlands' research insights into the history of witchcraft and witch-hunts
for popular consumption,
designed to challenge commonplace stereotypes of witches. There have been
two primary effects
of the `What is a Witch?' programme: informing the teaching of history in
UK primary and
secondary education and changing public understanding of witches.

Initial public engagement

Within the REF impact period Rowlands has given over 20 public lectures
and radio appearances.
Many of these appearances have been underpinned by her research on the
history of witchcraft,
and have been undertaken in order to correct common misconceptions, both
in Germany and the
UK, of the history of witches and witch-hunts. These public events
include: two appearances on
BBC Radio 4's In Our Time [downloaded since September 2011 at an
estimated rate of 2000 per
month; see corroborating source 1] and an appearance on Radio 4's Making
Histories in August
2011; public lectures and papers on local history in Germany, including
three presentations for the
annual public conference Arbeitskreis für interdisziplinäre
Hexenforschung and a public lecture for
the Rothenburg Local History Society lecture series [see corroborating
source 2]; and public
lectures and talks on regional history in East Anglia, including a 2010
public lecture for the Centre
for East Anglian Studies Public Lecture Series, a public lecture for the
Essex Branch of the
Historical Association in May 2011, a talk for the Sacred Hart Moot,
Romford, Essex (a Wicca and
modern-day witchcraft group; July 2012), and a public lecture for
Treadwell's Esoteric Bookshop,
London.

Feedback was collected extensively for the East of England events in
particular. The Chair of the
Essex Branch of the Historical Association confirmed of their event that
`those present derived a
new understanding of the previously enigmatic East Anglian witch-hunts'
[corroborating source 3].
25 members of the Sacred Hart Moot attended Rowlands' lecture, at which
100% of questionnaire
respondents confirmed they learned something new about witchcraft
[corroborating sources 4 and
5]. Finally, feedback from the 25 audience members at Treadwell's Bookshop
confirmed that
questionnaire respondents were previously unaware that children were
accused of witchcraft, and
that the lecture had challenged the misconception that victims of
witch-hunts were predominately
old and poor women [source 6].

`What is a `Witch'?'

These public lectures and talks led Rowlands to develop a strategic
programme to make her
research accessible to the public. `What is a `Witch'?' is an on-going
public programme that
combines public lectures and school outreach to achieve two impacts:
educating the general public
about the history of witchcraft; and supporting and influencing teaching
in UK primary and
secondary schools, with particular focus on history education and teaching
the virtue of tolerance.

The first strand of What is a `Witch'? is Rowlands' schools outreach
programme. In 2013 Rowlands
piloted a What is a `Witch'? history of witchcraft workshop designed to
aid the work of both primary
and secondary school teachers. She piloted her workshop at both a primary
(Millfields School,
Wivenhoe) and a secondary school (Colne School, Brightlingsea). Her pilot
with the latter
consisted of a one-day workshop for year 8 pupils, aided by a group of
history students from the
University of Essex. The more extensive pilot at Millfields Primary was
held for year 5 and year 6
pupils and contributed to their curriculum theme of `Heroes and Villains'
[source 7]. Rowlands used
her work on local witch history, specifically her research into East
Anglian witch-finders, to create a
programme that asks the students to take a more considered approach to the
judgement that local
17th century witch-finders were `villains'. The programme's
activities included presentations from
Rowlands, follow-up classroom work for the pupils, and a final event held
at the University of
Essex's Lakeside Theatre.

The success of the pilots led Rowlands to develop a teaching resource
pack for Key Stage 2 and
Key Stage 3 teachers. The pack includes four lesson plans supplemented
with slide presentations
and activity sheets for pupils, and can be used in classrooms without the
need to have Rowlands
running the workshop herself. In order to disseminate the resources to
teachers nationwide she
uploaded the pack on 18 July 2013 to the teaching resources section of the
Times Education
Supplement website. Though this is intended for uptake by teachers beyond
the end of the REF
impact period, by July 31 2013 the resources had already been viewed over
20 times [source 8].

The impact of the What is a `Witch'? programme on local school curricula
has been echoed at a
national level, with Rowlands' work used in an exam by OCR. OCR has used
an extract from her
book Witchcraft Narratives in Germany: Rothenburg, 1561-1652
(2003). This extract focuses in
particular on the restraint and caution with which witch-trials were
handled in Rothenburg. The
extract was used in the exam for A2 GCE History B, Historical
Controversies — Non-British History
(unit code F986/01) November — December 2012. OCR have also used this
material as part of
their training courses for training teachers in their exam specifications
[sources 9 and 10].

The second strand of the What is a `Witch'? programme has built on
Rowlands' public engagement
experience with a new series of public lectures and family workshops.
Rowlands has held family
days at the University of Essex art gallery `Art Exchange' and public
talks in Thorpe-le-Soken and
Colchester. The latter comprised three public lectures from May-July 2013
at local cultural centre,
firstsite. Feedback for this second string of What is a `Witch'? has been
overwhelmingly positive
and has shown that audiences have changed their misconceptions of the
history of witchcraft as a
result of her lectures. Feedback questionnaires from firstsite showed that
the audience rated the
lecture content an average of 4.8 of 5 [source 11], with one audience
member writing to the
University's Vice-Chancellor to note the lectures were `a marvellous
example of good `Town Gown'
relations' [source 12].

Sources to corroborate the impact

[All sources saved on file with HEI, available on request]

Figures from producer, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4

Chairman, Verein Alt-Rothenburg

Chair, Essex Branch, Historical Association

Organiser for the Sacred Hart Moot

Completed feedback questionnaires for talk given for the Sacred Hart
Moot

Feedback emails from attendees at the Treadwell bookshop talk

Deputy Headteacher at Millfields Primary School

Figure from Times Education Supplement website

Copyright Administrator, OCR

Copy of OCR exam script

Feedback questionnaire data from firstsite

Letter from audience member of firstsite lectures to the University of
Essex Vice-Chancellor